svs's blog

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi - Movie Review

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This is the absolute LAST time I get taken in by the hype. What a terrible movie.

From the first scene itself I knew something was wrong. The gruesome riot completely silent….fuckall. The first thing that hits you about the film is the complete ineptness of the crew. All of them. The makeup artist, the cinematographer, the dialogue writer, the director, the editor, the actors. There. All of them did an utterly hamhanded job. The film looks more like a student diploma film than this so called “revolutionary” film by a Great Indian Director.
The cinematography was appaling! No nuance, no composition. Terrible lighting. Yuck. The dialogue was atrocious, and delivered even worse by three total ham’s. I mean the guy can’t read a line properly in the voiceovers. Flub after flub afer flub. The editing was the only thing about the film that was authentic of the period i.e. abrupt cuts and jumps. Clumsy pacing. A monument to medicrity. The story itself is awful awful awful. Man, Sudhir Mishra’s really disappointed on this one. I used to be a fan of his.
I left in the interval. I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t got up to pee, but once I was outside the cinema I could think of no real reason to go back in and have my intelligence insulted for another hour. It strikes me as odd how someone as educated in the medium can make such a terrible movie.
I read in some review that “But Chitrangada Singh, whose face draws inevitable comparisons to Smita Patil, is definitely someone to watch out for. She is a complete natural who zaps the camera with a passionate performance.” Reminded me of Mira Nair comparing Rabbi to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. How can people be so fucking stupid?
Also, the media somehow keeps calling this an internationally acclaimed film. Where, I want to know is the acclaim coming from. The media claims the film “won” the Fonds Sud and Montecinemaveritas awards but the truth is (as any google search will show) that the film was made with funding from these two agencies. It wasn’t a prize, you lying bastards. Also, the hype about all the festivals it’s been too. Well, let me tell you what else is playing at the DC Film Festival from India: Dil Se, Black, Raincoat, Morning Raga, Bawandar, Dev (yes, the Amitabh Bachchan one) Mughal-e-Azam and Choker Bali. Some fucking festival.